Representative Government, by John Stuart Mill

Chapter 2

The Criterion of a Good Form of Government.

THE FORM of government for any given country being (within certain definite conditions) amenable to
choice, it is now to be considered by what test the choice should be directed; what are the distinctive characteristics
of the form of government best fitted to promote the interests of any given society.

Before entering into this inquiry, it may seem necessary to decide what are the proper functions of government; for,
government altogether being only a means, the eligibility of the means must depend on their adaptation to the end. But
this mode of stating the problem gives less aid to its investigation than might be supposed, and does not even bring
the whole of the question into view. For, in the first place, the proper functions of a government are not a fixed
thing, but different in different states of society; much more extensive in a backward than in an advanced state. And,
secondly, the character of a government or set of political institutions cannot be sufficiently estimated while we
confine our attention to the legitimate sphere of governmental functions. For though the goodness of a government is
necessarily circumscribed within that sphere, its badness unhappily is not. Every kind and degree of evil of which
mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their government; and none of the good which social existence is
capable of can be any further realised than as the constitution of the government is compatible with, and allows scope
for, its attainment. Not to speak of indirect effects, the direct meddling of the public authorities has no necessary
limits but those of human existence; and the influence of government on the well-being of society can be considered or
estimated in reference to nothing less than the whole of the interests of humanity.

Being thus obliged to place before ourselves, as the test of good and bad government, so complex an object as the
aggregate interests of society, we would willingly attempt some kind of classification of those interests, which,
bringing them before the mind in definite groups, might give indication of the qualities by which a form of government
is fitted to promote those various interests respectively. It would be a great facility if we could say the good of
society consists of such and such elements; one of these elements requires such conditions, another such others; the
government, then, which unites in the greatest degree all these conditions, must be the best. The theory of government
would thus be built up from the separate theorems of the elements which compose a good state of society.

Unfortunately, to enumerate and classify the constituents of social well-being, so as to admit of the formation of
such theorems, is no easy task. Most of those who, in the last or present generation, have applied themselves to the
philosophy of politics in any comprehensive spirit, have felt the importance of such a classification; but the attempts
which have been made towards it are as yet limited, so far as I am aware, to a single step. The classification begins
and ends with a partition of the exigencies of society between the two heads of Order and Progress (in the phraseology
of French thinkers); Permanence and Progression in the words of Coleridge. This division is plausible and seductive,
from the apparently clean-cut opposition between its two members, and the remarkable difference between the sentiments
to which they appeal. But I apprehend that (however admissible for purposes of popular discourse) the distinction
between Order, or Permanence, and Progress, employed to define the qualities necessary in a government, is unscientific
and incorrect.

For, first, what are Order and Progress? Concerning Progress there is no difficulty, or none which is apparent at
first sight. When Progress is spoken of as one of the wants of human society, it may be supposed to mean Improvement.
That is a tolerably distinct idea. But what is Order? Sometimes it means more, sometimes less, but hardly ever the
whole of what human society needs except improvement.

In its narrowest acceptation Order means Obedience. A government is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting
itself obeyed. But there are different degrees of obedience, and it is not every degree that is commendable. Only an
unmitigated despotism demands that the individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons in
authority. We must at least limit the definition to such mandates as are general and issued in the deliberate form of
laws. Order, thus understood, expresses, doubtless, an indispensable attribute of government. Those who are unable to
make their ordinances obeyed, cannot be said to govern. But though a necessary condition, this is not the object of
government. That it should make itself obeyed is requisite, in order that it may accomplish some other purpose. We are
still to seek what is this other purpose, which government ought to fulfil, abstractedly from the idea of improvement,
and which has to be fulfilled in every society, whether stationary or progressive.

In a sense somewhat more enlarged, Order means the preservation of peace by the cessation of private violence. Order
is said to exist where the people of the country have, as a general rule, ceased to prosecute their quarrels by private
force, and acquired the habit of referring the decision of their disputes and the redress of their injuries to the
public authorities. But in this larger use of the term, as well as in the former narrow one, Order expresses rather one
of the conditions of government, than either its purpose or the criterion of its excellence. For the habit may be well
established of submitting to the government, and referring all disputed matters to its authority, and yet the manner in
which the government deals with those disputed matters, and with the other things about which it concerns itself, may
differ by the whole interval which divides the best from the worst possible.

If we intend to comprise in the idea of Order all that society requires from its government which is not included in
the idea of Progress, we must define Order as the preservation of all kinds and amounts of good which already exist,
and Progress as consisting in the increase of them. This distinction does comprehend in one or the other section
everything which a government can be required to promote. But, thus understood, it affords no basis for a philosophy of
government. We cannot say that, in constituting a polity, certain provisions ought to be made for Order and certain
others for Progress; since the conditions of Order, in the sense now indicated, and those of Progress, are not
opposite, but the same. The agencies which tend to preserve the social good which already exists are the very same
which promote the increase of it, and vice versa: the sole difference being, that a greater degree of those agencies is
required for the latter purpose than for the former.

What, for example, are the qualities in the citizens individually which conduce most to keep up the amount of good
conduct, of good management, of success and prosperity, which already exist in society? Everybody will agree that those
qualities are industry, integrity, justice, and prudence. But are not these, of all qualities, the most conducive to
improvement? and is not any growth of these virtues in the community in itself the greatest of improvements? If so,
whatever qualities in the government are promotive of industry, integrity, justice, and prudence, conduce alike to
permanence and to progression; only there is needed more of those qualities to make the society decidedly progressive
than merely to keep it permanent.

What, again, are the particular attributes in human beings which seem to have a more especial reference to Progress,
and do not so directly suggest the ideas of Order and Preservation? They are chiefly the qualities of mental activity,
enterprise, and courage. But are not all these qualities fully as much required for preserving the good we have, as for
adding to it? If there is anything certain in human affairs, it is that valuable acquisitions are only to be retained
by the continuation of the same energies which gained them. Things left to take care of themselves inevitably decay.
Those whom success induces to relax their habits of care and thoughtfulness, and their willingness to encounter
disagreeables, seldom long retain their good fortune at its height. The mental attribute which seems exclusively
dedicated to Progress, and is the culmination of the tendencies to it, is Originality, or Invention. Yet this is no
less necessary for Permanence; since, in the inevitable changes of human affairs, new inconveniences and dangers
continually grow up, which must be encountered by new resources and contrivances, in order to keep things going on even
only as well as they did before. Whatever qualities, therefore, in a government, tend to encourage activity, energy,
courage, originality, are requisites of Permanence as well as of Progress; only a somewhat less degree of them will on
the average suffice for the former purpose than for the latter.

To pass now from the mental to the outward and objective requisites of society; it is impossible to point out any
contrivance in politics, or arrangement of social affairs, which conduces to Order only, or to Progress only; whatever
tends to either promotes both. Take, for instance, the common institution of a police. Order is the object which seems
most immediately interested in the efficiency of this part of the social organisation. Yet if it is effectual to
promote Order, that is, if it represses crime, and enables every one to feel his person and property secure, can any
state of things be more conducive to Progress? The greater security of property is one of the main conditions and
causes of greater production, which is Progress in its most familiar and vulgarest aspect. The better repression of
crime represses the dispositions which tend to crime, and this is Progress in a somewhat higher sense. The release of
the individual from the cares and anxieties of a state of imperfect protection, sets his faculties free to be employed
in any new effort for improving his own state and that of others: while the same cause, by attaching him to social
existence, and making him no longer see present or prospective enemies in his fellow creatures, fosters all those
feelings of kindness and fellowship towards others, and interest in the general well-being of the community, which are
such important parts of social improvement.

Take, again, such a familiar case as that of a good system of taxation and finance. This would generally be classed
as belonging to the province of Order. Yet what can be more conducive to Progress? A financial system which promotes
the one, conduces, by the very same excellences, to the other. Economy, for example, equally preserves the existing
stock of national wealth, and favours the creation of more. A just distribution of burthens, by holding up to every
citizen an example of morality and good conscience applied to difficult adjustments, and an evidence of the value which
the highest authorities attach to them, tends in an eminent degree to educate the moral sentiments of the community,
both in respect of strength and of discrimination. Such a mode of levying the taxes as does not impede the industry, or
unnecessarily interfere with the liberty, of the citizen, promotes, not the preservation only, but the increase of the
national wealth, and encourages a more active use of the individual faculties. And vice versa, all errors in finance
and taxation which obstruct the improvement of the people in wealth and morals tend also, if of sufficiently serious
amount, positively to impoverish and demoralise them. It holds, in short, universally, that when Order and Permanence
are taken in their widest sense, for the stability of existing advantages, the requisites of Progress are but the
requisites of Order in a greater degree; those of Permanence merely those of Progress in a somewhat smaller
measure.

In support of the position that Order is intrinsically different from Progress, and that preservation of existing
and acquisition of additional good are sufficiently distinct to afford the basis of a fundamental classification, we
shall perhaps be reminded that Progress may be at the expense of Order; that while we are acquiring, or striving to
acquire, good of one kind, we may be losing ground in respect to others: thus there may be progress in wealth, while
there is deterioration in virtue. Granting this, what it proves is not that Progress is generically a different thing
from Permanence, but that wealth is a different thing from virtue. Progress is permanence and something more; and it is
no answer to this to say that Progress in one thing does not imply Permanence in everything. No more does Progress in
one thing imply Progress in everything. Progress of any kind includes Permanence in that same kind; whenever Permanence
is sacrificed to some particular kind of Progress, other Progress is still more sacrificed to it; and if it be not
worth the sacrifice, not the interest of Permanence alone has been disregarded, but the general interest of Progress
has been mistaken.

If these improperly contrasted ideas are to be used at all in the attempt to give a first commencement of scientific
precision to the notion of good government, it would be more philosophically correct to leave out of the definition the
word Order, and to say that the best government is that which is most conducive to Progress. For Progress includes
Order, but Order does not include Progress. Progress is a greater degree of that of which Order is a less. Order, in
any other sense, stands only for a part of the pre-requisites of good government, not for its idea and essence. Order
would find a more suitable place among the conditions of Progress; since, if we would increase our sum of good, nothing
is more indispensable than to take due care of what we already have. If we are endeavouring after more riches, our very
first rule should be not to squander uselessly our existing means. Order, thus considered, is not an additional end to
be reconciled with Progress, but a part and means of Progress itself. If a gain in one respect is purchased by a more
than equivalent loss in the same or in any other, there is not Progress. Conduciveness to Progress, thus understood,
includes the whole excellence of a government.

But, though metaphysically defensible, this definition of the criterion of good government is not appropriate,
because, though it contains the whole of the truth, it recalls only a part. What is suggested by the term Progress is
the idea of moving onward, whereas the meaning of it here is quite as much the prevention of falling back. The very
same social causes — the same beliefs, feelings, institutions, and practices — are as much required to prevent society
from retrograding, as to produce a further advance. Were there no improvement to be hoped for, life would not be the
less an unceasing struggle against causes of deterioration; as it even now is. Politics, as conceived by the ancients,
consisted wholly in this. The natural tendency of men and their works was to degenerate, which tendency, however, by
good institutions virtuously administered, it might be possible for an indefinite length of time to counteract. Though
we no longer hold this opinion; though most men in the present age profess the contrary creed, believing that the
tendency of things, on the whole, is towards improvement; we ought not to forget that there is an incessant and
ever-flowing current of human affairs towards the worse, consisting of all the follies, all the vices, all the
negligences, indolences, and supinenesses of mankind; which is only controlled, and kept from sweeping all before it,
by the exertions which some persons constantly, and others by fits, put forth in the direction of good and worthy
objects. It gives a very insufficient idea of the importance of the strivings which take place to improve and elevate
human nature and life, to suppose that their chief value consists in the amount of actual improvement realised by their
means, and that the consequence of their cessation would merely be that we should remain as we are. A very small
diminution of those exertions would not only put a stop to improvement, but would turn the general tendency of things
towards deterioration; which, once begun, would proceed with increasingly rapidity, and become more and more difficult
to check, until it reached a state often seen in history, and in which many large portions of mankind even now grovel;
when hardly anything short of superhuman power seems sufficient to turn the tide, and give a fresh commencement to the
upward movement.

These reasons make the word Progress as unapt as the terms Order and Permanence to become the basis for a
classification of the requisites of a form of government. The fundamental antithesis which these words express does not
lie in the things themselves, so much as in the types of human character which answer to them. There are, we know, some
minds in which caution, and others in which boldness, predominates: in some, the desire to avoid imperilling what is
already possessed is a stronger sentiment than that which prompts to improve the old and acquire new advantages; while
there are others who lean the contrary way, and are more eager for future than careful of present good. The road to the
ends of both is the same; but they are liable to wander from it in opposite directions. This consideration is of
importance in composing the personnel of any political body: persons of both types ought to be included in it, that the
tendencies of each may be tempered, in so far as they are excessive, by a due proportion of the other. There needs no
express provision to ensure this object, provided care is taken to admit nothing inconsistent with it. The natural and
spontaneous admixture of the old and the young, of those whose position and reputation are made and those who have them
still to make, will in general sufficiently answer the purpose, if only this natural balance is not disturbed by
artificial regulation.

Since the distinction most commonly adopted for the classification of social exigencies does not possess the
properties needful for that use, we have to seek for some other leading distinction better adapted to the purpose. Such
a distinction would seem to be indicated by the considerations to which I now proceed.

If we ask ourselves on what causes and conditions good government in all its senses, from the humblest to the most
exalted, depends, we find that the principal of them, the one which transcends all others, is the qualities of the
human beings composing the society over which the government is exercised.

We may take, as a first instance, the administration of justice; with the more propriety, since there is no part of
public business in which the mere machinery, the rules and contrivances for conducting the details of the operation,
are of such vital consequence. Yet even these yield in importance to the qualities of the human agents employed. Of
what efficacy are rules of procedure in securing the ends of justice, if the moral condition of the people is such that
the witnesses generally lie, and the judges and their subordinates take bribes? Again, how can institutions provide a
good municipal administration if there exists such indifference to the subject that those who would administer honestly
and capably cannot be induced to serve, and the duties are left to those who undertake them because they have some
private interest to be promoted? Of what avail is the most broadly popular representative system if the electors do not
care to choose the best member of parliament, but choose him who will spend most money to be elected? How can a
representative assembly work for good if its members can be bought, or if their excitability of temperament,
uncorrected by public discipline or private self-control, makes them incapable of calm deliberation, and they resort to
manual violence on the floor of the House, or shoot at one another with rifles? How, again, can government, or any
joint concern, be carried on in a tolerable manner by people so envious that, if one among them seems likely to succeed
in anything, those who ought to cooperate with him form a tacit combination to make him fail? Whenever the general
disposition of the people is such that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does
not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things good government is
impossible. The influence of defects of intelligence in obstructing all the elements of good government requires no
illustration. Government consists of acts done by human beings; and if the agents, or those who choose the agents, or
those to whom the agents are responsible, or the lookers-on whose opinion ought to influence and check all these, are
mere masses of ignorance, stupidity, and baleful prejudice, every operation of government will go wrong; while, in
proportion as the men rise above this standard, so will the government improve in quality; up to the point of
excellence, attainable but nowhere attained, where the officers of government, themselves persons of superior virtue
and intellect, are surrounded by the atmosphere of a virtuous and enlightened public opinion.

The first element of good government, therefore, being the virtue and intelligence of the human beings composing the
community, the most important point of excellence which any form of government can possess is to promote the virtue and
intelligence of the people themselves. The first question in respect to any political institutions is, how far they
tend to foster in the members of the community the various desirable qualities, moral and intellectual; or rather
(following Bentham's more complete classification) moral, intellectual, and active. The government which does this the
best has every likelihood of being the best in all other respects, since it is on these qualities, so far as they exist
in the people, that all possibility of goodness in the practical operations of the government depends.

We may consider, then, as one criterion of the goodness of a government, the degree in which it tends to increase
the sum of good qualities in the governed, collectively and individually; since, besides that their well-being is the
sole object of government, their good qualities supply the moving force which works the machinery. This leaves, as the
other constituent element of the merit of a government, the quality of the machinery itself; that is, the degree in
which it is adapted to take advantage of the amount of good qualities which may at any time exist, and make them
instrumental to the right purposes. Let us again take the subject of judicature as an example and illustration. The
judicial system being given, the goodness of the administration of justice is in the compound ratio of the worth of the
men composing the tribunals, and the worth of the public opinion which influences or controls them. But all the
difference between a good and a bad system of judicature lies in the contrivances adopted for bringing whatever moral
and intellectual worth exists in the community to bear upon the administration of justice, and making it duly operative
on the result. The arrangements for rendering the choice of the judges such as to obtain the highest average of virtue
and intelligence; the salutary forms of procedure; the publicity which allows observation and criticism of whatever is
amiss; the liberty of discussion and censure through the press; the mode of taking evidence, according as it is well or
ill adapted to elicit truth; the facilities, whatever be their amount, for obtaining access to the tribunals; the
arrangements for detecting crimes and apprehending offenders; — all these things are not the power, but the machinery
for bringing the power into contact with the obstacle: and the machinery has no action of itself, but without it the
power, let it be ever so ample, would be wasted and of no effect.

A similar distinction exists in regard to the constitution of the executive departments of administration. Their
machinery is good, when the proper tests are prescribed for the qualifications of officers, the proper rules for their
promotion; when the business is conveniently distributed among those who are to transact it, a convenient and
methodical order established for its transaction, a correct and intelligible record kept of it after being transacted;
when each individual knows for what he is responsible, and is known to others as responsible for it; when the
best-contrived checks are provided against negligence, favouritism, or jobbery, in any of the acts of the department.
But political checks will no more act of themselves than a bridle will direct a horse without a rider. If the checking
functionaries are as corrupt or as negligent as those whom they ought to check, and if the public, the mainspring of
the whole checking machinery, are too ignorant, too passive, or too careless and inattentive, to do their part, little
benefit will be derived from the best administrative apparatus. Yet a good apparatus is always preferable to a bad. It
enables such insufficient moving or checking power as exists to act at the greatest advantage; and without it, no
amount of moving or checking power would be sufficient. Publicity, for instance, is no impediment to evil nor stimulus
to good if the public will not look at what is done; but without publicity, how could they either check or encourage
what they were not permitted to see? The ideally perfect constitution of a public office is that in which the interest
of the functionary is entirely coincident with his duty. No mere system will make it so, but still less can it be made
so without a system, aptly devised for the purpose.

What we have said of the arrangements for the detailed administration of the government is still more evidently true
of its general constitution. All government which aims at being good is an organisation of some part of the good
qualities existing in the individual members of the community for the conduct of its collective affairs. A
representative constitution is a means of bringing the general standard of intelligence and honesty existing in the
community, and the individual intellect and virtue of its wisest members, more directly to bear upon the government,
and investing them with greater influence in it, than they would in general have under any other mode of organisation;
though, under any, such influence as they do have is the source of all good that there is in the government, and the
hindrance of every evil that there is not. The greater the amount of these good qualities which the institutions of a
country succeed in organising, and the better the mode of organisation, the better will be the government.

We have now, therefore, obtained a foundation for a twofold division of the merit which any set of political
institutions can possess. It consists partly of the degree in which they promote the general mental advancement of the
community, including under that phrase advancement in intellect, in virtue, and in practical activity and efficiency;
and partly of the degree of perfection with which they organise the moral, intellectual, and active worth already
existing, so as to operate with the greatest effect on public affairs. A government is to be judged by its action upon
men, and by its action upon things; by what it makes of the citizens, and what it does with them; its tendency to
improve or deteriorate the people themselves, and the goodness or badness of the work it performs for them, and by
means of them. Government is at once a great influence acting on the human mind, and a set of organised arrangements
for public business: in the first capacity its beneficial action is chiefly indirect, but not therefore less vital,
while its mischievous action may be direct.

The difference between these two functions of a government is not, like that between Order and Progress, a
difference merely in degree, but in kind. We must not, however, suppose that they have no intimate connection with one
another. The institutions which ensure the best management of public affairs practicable in the existing state of
cultivation tend by this alone to the further improvement of that state. A people which had the most just laws, the
purest and most efficient judicature, the most enlightened administration, the most equitable and least onerous system
of finance, compatible with the stage it had attained in moral and intellectual advancement, would be in a fair way to
pass rapidly into a higher stage. Nor is there any mode in which political institutions can contribute more effectually
to the improvement of the people than by doing their more direct work well. And, reversely, if their machinery is so
badly constructed that they do their own particular business ill, the effect is felt in a thousand ways in lowering the
morality and deadening the intelligence and activity of the people. But the distinction is nevertheless real, because
this is only one of the means by which political institutions improve or deteriorate the human mind, and the causes and
modes of that beneficial or injurious influence remain a distinct and much wider subject of study.

Of the two modes of operation by which a form of government or set of political institutions affects the welfare of
the community — its operation as an agency of national education, and its arrangements for conducting the collective
affairs of the community in the state of education in which they already are; the last evidently varies much less, from
difference of country and state of civilisation, than the first. It has also much less to do with the fundamental
constitution of the government. The mode of conducting the practical business of government, which is best under a free
constitution, would generally be best also in an absolute monarchy: only an absolute monarchy is not so likely to
practise it. The laws of property, for example; the principles of evidence and judicial procedure; the system of
taxation and of financial administration, need not necessarily be different in different forms of government. Each of
these matters has principles and rules of its own, which are a subject of separate study. General jurisprudence, civil
and penal legislation, financial and commercial policy, are sciences in themselves, or rather, separate members of the
comprehensive science or art of government: and the most enlightened doctrines on all these subjects, though not
equally likely to be understood, or acted on under all forms of government, yet, if understood and acted on, would in
general be equally beneficial under them all. It is true that these doctrines could not be applied without some
modifications to all states of society and of the human mind: nevertheless, by far the greater number of them would
require modifications solely of details, to adapt them to any state of society sufficiently advanced to possess rulers
capable of understanding them. A government to which they would be wholly unsuitable must be one so bad in itself, or
so opposed to public feeling, as to be unable to maintain itself in existence by honest means.

It is otherwise with that portion of the interests of the community which relate to the better or worse training of
the people themselves. Considered as instrumental to this, institutions need to be radically different, according to
the stage of advancement already reached. The recognition of this truth, though for the most part empirically rather
than philosophically, may be regarded as the main point of superiority in the political theories of the present above
those of the last age; in which it customary to claim representative democracy for England or France by arguments which
would equally have proved it the only fit form of government for Bedouins or Malays. The state of different
communities, in point of culture and development, ranges downwards to a condition very little above the highest of the
beasts. The upward range, too, is considerable, and the future possible extension vastly greater. A community can only
be developed out of one of these states into a higher by a concourse of influences, among the principal of which is the
government to which they are subject. In all states of human improvement ever yet attained, the nature and degree of
authority exercised over individuals, the distribution of power, and the conditions of command and obedience, are the
most powerful of the influences, except their religious belief, which make them what they are, and enable them to
become what they can be. They may be stopped short at any point in their progress by defective adaptation of their
government to that particular stage of advancement. And the one indispensable merit of a government, in favour of which
it may be forgiven almost any amount of other demerit compatible with progress, is that its operation on the people is
favourable, or not unfavourable, to the next step which it is necessary for them to take, in order to raise themselves
to a higher level.

Thus (to repeat a former example), a people in a state of savage independence, in which every one lives for himself,
exempt, unless by fits, from any external control, is practically incapable of making any progress in civilisation
until it has learnt to obey. The indispensable virtue, therefore, in a government which establishes itself over a
people of this sort is, that it make itself obeyed. To enable it to do this, the constitution of the government must be
nearly, or quite, despotic. A constitution in any degree popular, dependent on the voluntary surrender by the different
members of the community of their individual freedom of action, would fail to enforce the first lesson which the
pupils, in this stage of their progress, require. Accordingly, the civilisation of such tribes, when not the result of
juxtaposition with others already civilised, is almost always the work of an absolute ruler, deriving his power either
from religion or military prowess; very often from foreign arms.

Again, uncivilised races, and the bravest and most energetic still more than the rest, are averse to continuous
labour of an unexciting kind. Yet all real civilisation is at this price; without such labour, neither can the mind be
disciplined into the habits required by civilised society, nor the material world prepared to receive it. There needs a
rare concurrence of circumstances, and for that reason often a vast length of time, to reconcile such a people to
industry, unless they are for a while compelled to it. Hence even personal slavery, by giving a commencement to
industrial life, and enforcing it as the exclusive occupation of the most numerous portion of the community, may
accelerate the transition to a better freedom than that of fighting and rapine. It is almost needless to say that this
excuse for slavery is only available in a very early state of society. A civilised people have far other means of
imparting civilisation to those under their influence; and slavery is, in all its details, so repugnant to that
government of law, which is the foundation of all modern life, and so corrupting to the master-class when they have
once come under civilised influences, that its adoption under any circumstances whatever in modern society is a relapse
into worse than barbarism.

At some period, however, of their history, almost every people, now civilised, have consisted, in majority, of
slaves. A people in that condition require to raise them out of it a very different polity from a nation of savages. If
they are energetic by nature, and especially if there be associated with them in. the same community an industrious
class who are neither slaves nor slave-owners (as was the case in Greece), they need, probably, no more to ensure their
improvement than to make them free: when freed, they may often be fit, like Roman freedmen, to be admitted at once to
the full rights of citizenship. This, however, is not the normal condition of slavery, and is generally a sign that it
is becoming obsolete. A slave, properly so called, is a being who has not learnt to help himself. He is, no doubt, one
step in advance of a savage. He has not the first lesson of political society still to acquire. He has learnt to obey.
But what he obeys is only a direct command. It is the characteristic of born slaves to be incapable of conforming their
conduct to a rule, or law. They can only do what they are ordered, and only when they are ordered to do it. If a man
whom they fear is standing over them and threatening them with punishment, they obey; but when his back is turned, the
work remains undone. The motive determining them must appeal not to their interests, but to their instincts; immediate
hope or immediate terror. A despotism, which may tame the savage, will, in so far as it is a despotism, only confirm
the slaves in their incapacities. Yet a government under their own control would be entirely unmanageable by them.
Their improvement cannot come from themselves, but must be superinduced from without. The step which they have to take,
and their only path to improvement, is to be raised from a government of will to one of law. They have to be taught
self-government, and this, in its initial stage, means the capacity to act on general instructions. What they require
is not a government of force, but one of guidance. Being, however, in too low a state to yield to the guidance of any
but those to whom they look up as the possessors of force, the sort of government fittest for them is one which
possesses force, but seldom uses it: a parental despotism or aristocracy, resembling the St. Simonian form of
Socialism; maintaining a general superintendence over all the operations of society, so as to keep before each the
sense of a present force sufficient to compel his obedience to the rule laid down, but which, owing to the
impossibility of descending to regulate all the minutae of industry and life, necessarily leaves and induces
individuals to do much of themselves. This, which may be termed the government of leading-strings, seems to be the one
required to carry such a people the most rapidly through the next necessary step in social progress. Such appears to
have been the idea of the government of the Incas of Peru; and such was that of the Jesuits of Paraguay. I need
scarcely remark that leading-strings are only admissible as a means of gradually training the people to walk alone.

It would be out of place to carry the illustration further. To attempt to investigate what kind of government is
suited to every known state of society would be to compose a treatise, not on representative government, but on
political science at large. For our more limited purpose we borrow from political philosophy only its general
principles. To determine the form of government most suited to any particular people, we must be able, among the
defects and shortcomings which belong to that people, to distinguish those that are the immediate impediment to
progress; to discover what it is which (as it were) stops the way. The best government for them is the one which tends
most to give them that for want of which they cannot advance, or advance only in a lame and lopsided manner. We must
not, however, forget the reservation necessary in all things which have for their object improvement, or Progress;
namely, that in seeking the good which is needed, no damage, or as little as possible, be done to that already
possessed. A people of savages should be taught obedience but not in such a manner as to convert them into a people of
slaves. And (to give the observation a higher generality) the form of government which is most effectual for carrying a
people through the next stage of progress will still be very improper for them if it does this in such a manner as to
obstruct, or positively unfit them for, the step next beyond. Such cases are frequent, and are among the most
melancholy facts in history. The Egyptian hierarchy, the paternal despotism of China, were very fit instruments for
carrying those nations up to the point of civilisation which they attained. But having reached that point, they were
brought to a permanent halt for want of mental liberty and individuality; requisites of improvement which the
institutions that had carried them thus far entirely incapacitated them from acquiring; and as the institutions did not
break down and give place to others, further improvement stopped.

In contrast with these nations, let us consider the example of an opposite character afforded by another and a
comparatively insignificant Oriental people — the Jews. They, too, had an absolute monarchy and a hierarchy, their
organised institutions were as obviously of sacerdotal origin as those of the Hindoos. These did for them what was done
for other Oriental races by their institutions — subdued them to industry and order, and gave them a national life. But
neither their kings nor their priests ever obtained, as in those other countries, the exclusive moulding of their
character. Their religion, which enabled persons of genius and a high religious tone to be regarded and to regard
themselves as inspired from heaven, gave existence to an inestimably precious unorganised institution — the Order (if
it may be so termed) of Prophets. Under the protection, generally though not always effectual, of their sacred
character, the Prophets were a power in the nation, often more than a match for kings and priests, and kept up, in that
little corner of the earth, the antagonism of influences which is the only real security for continued progress.
Religion consequently was not there what it has been in so many other places — a consecration of all that was once
established, and a barrier against further improvement. The remark of a distinguished Hebrew, M. Salvador, that the
Prophets were, in Church and State, the equivalent of the modern liberty of the press, gives a just but not an adequate
conception of the part fulfilled in national and universal history by this great element of Jewish life; by means of
which, the canon of inspiration never being complete, the persons most eminent in genius and moral feeling could not
only denounce and reprobate, with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever appeared to them deserving of such
treatment, but could give forth better and higher interpretations of the national religion, which thenceforth became
part of the religion. Accordingly, whoever can divest himself of the habit of reading the Bible as if it was one book,
which until lately was equally inveterate in Christians and in unbelievers, sees with admiration the vast interval
between the morality and religion of the Pentateuch, or even of the historical books (the unmistakable work of Hebrew
Conservatives of the sacerdotal order), and the morality and religion of the Prophecies: a distance as wide as between
these last and the Gospels. Conditions more favourable to Progress could not easily exist: accordingly, the Jews,
instead of being stationary like other Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the most progressive people of antiquity,
and, jointly with them, have been the starting-point and main propelling agency of modern cultivation.

It is, then, impossible to understand the question of the adaptation of forms of government to states of society
without taking into account not only the next step, but all the steps which society has yet to make; both those which
can be foreseen, and the far wider indefinite range which is at present out of sight. It follows, that to judge of the
merits of forms of government, an ideal must be constructed of the form of government most eligible in itself, that is,
which, if the necessary conditions existed for giving effect to its beneficial tendencies, would, more than all others,
favour and promote not some one improvement, but all forms and degrees of it. This having been done, we must consider
what are the mental conditions of all sorts, necessary to enable this government to realise its tendencies, and what,
therefore, are the various defects by which a people is made incapable of reaping its benefits. It would then be
possible to construct a theorem of the circumstances in which that form of government may wisely be introduced; and
also to judge, in cases in which it had better not be introduced, what inferior forms of polity will best carry those
communities through the intermediate stages which they must traverse before they can become fit for the best form of
government.

Of these inquiries, the last does not concern us here; but the first is an essential part of our subject: for we
may, without rashness, at once enunciate a proposition, the proofs and illustrations of which will present themselves
in the ensuing pages; that this ideally best form of government will be found in some one or other variety of the
Representative System.